


Her Mind, Her Soul, and Her Heart

by Stubbornness_and_Spite



Category: Little Women (2019)
Genre: Aromantic Character, Other, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, aromantic josephine march
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22295404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stubbornness_and_Spite/pseuds/Stubbornness_and_Spite
Summary: The day she stops loving is the day she stops breathing. She loves her sisters and her mother and she loves Laurie. She might love Friedrich Bhaer too.She will not marry them.She is alone.She is rejected and she turns them away.She is separate.She is always alone.She refuses to be lonely.The day she stops loving is the day she stops breathing.
Relationships: Friedrich Bhaer & Josephine March, Theodore Laurence & Josephine March
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	1. Women, they have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts

Laurie was in love with her and nothing would ever be the same again. Laurie was in love with her and she was not in love with him and everything she had ever wanted was falling apart. Laurie was leaving her behind because she had told him that she couldn’t marry him and she was going to be lonely and alone because she couldn’t accept a proposal from the only man who had ever loved her, likely the only man who would ever love her. He was leaving her behind, and she was going to be so lonely without him.

“Teddy, wait!” Jo cried, catching his wrist. “Please.” Laurie wrenched his hand away from her but didn’t move to leave. Jo took a shaky breath. “I have something I need to say, and it’s going to seem very selfish.”

Laurie scoffed. “When are you not selfish, Jo?”

Jo didn’t bother arguing with him. “I love you,” she blurted out.

He stared at her, a mixture of confusion and contempt on his face. “Then why can’t you say yes?”

Tears welled up in Jo’s eyes. “You don’t understand, Teddy. I love you, but I love you like I love Meg and Amy and Marmee and Beth.” Her hands danced desperately through the air. “I love you like I love Beth!” she cried. Silently, Laurie reached out and gripped both of her wrists, slowing her hands. Jo took a long breath. “I can’t love you the way you love me. I don’t have that kind of love in me, but I do love you. And if, knowing that that is all we will ever have, you still want to marry me, then I will say yes.”

“Don’t make me out to be the villain, Jo. Don’t do it.”

No one saw her cry because he left her there.

And Jo was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched Little Women not long ago and I had a lot of feelings.   
> I posted all 3 chapters of this at the same time, so most of my notes are on the last chapter. I am not aromantic(I think), so if anyone reading this is and would like to point out something I got wrong that's always welcome. I am asexual so I tried to use that to relate to what I think being aromantic would feel like, but please tell me if I got anything wrong.


	2. They've got ambition and they've got talent as well as just beauty

Laurie had never looked happier than when he told her he was married to Amy. Something in him had changed and regardless of his hesitation and his fear that she would resent him for it, he had never looked happier. He had never looked more at home in his own skin. Amy had always loved him, Jo knew that and Amy would be able to give him what she couldn’t. Laurie had never looked happier and Jo was happy for him. 

He asked her something, but she didn’t hear him. Jo looked up at him and saw the fond amusement in his eyes as he knew she hadn’t heard him. She answered the question in his eyes. 

“I am so happy for you,” she said, a smile edging onto her face. Her smile grew even wider as he bit back a smile of his own.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his face tense with the effort of not beaming at her. “You won’t resent us for this?” A scowl marred Jo’s face as her eyes started to well up. She brushed the tears away violently, but they didn’t stop. Laurie reached out a hand and stopped her attack on her face. He lifted his free hand and gently wiped the tear streaks off her face. 

Jo leaned into his hand and said softly, “I have loved you since I met you. I have loved you since you took me to dance away from prying eyes. All I have ever wanted was to be your sister. Now I am.”

Laurie squeezed her hand and dropped his hand from her face to her shoulder. “Now you are.”

Jo grinned mischievously at him. “Since you are married to my sister, our being close friends is perfectly acceptable. I intend to continue running off into fields with my brother.”

Without warning, Laurie lunged forward and hugged her tightly, pulling her off of her seat and onto the floor where he was kneeling. “I fully intend to keep running off to skate with my sister.”

“Congratulations, Teddy,” Jo murmured into his shoulder. “I think you are going to be very happy.”

Laurie pulled her closer. “Thank you, Jo.”

“Just-” Jo choked. “Please don’t leave me again. I was by myself for so long and I was so lonely.” Jo shook as she cried in Laurie’s arms.

Laurie’s arms were firm and unwavering around her. “We’re family now. I’m not leaving ever again.” 

She was never going to be alone again.


	3. I'm so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for

“You love him!”

“Never thought I’d be helping Jo March chase after a man.”

Their voices rang in Jo’s head as the carriage jostled her around, bumping her into her siblings. Meg and Amy had pushed her into the carriage and stuffed themselves in after her. Laurie had been standing by the carriage and watching them with a fond smile when Jo and Amy exchanged a look. They reached out in unison and each grabbed one of his arms, dragging him, yelping, into the carriage with them.

Laurie laughed and squished in the carriage next to his wife, opposite his sisters. Their faces were covered in laughter and their voices carried good-natured taunts. Jo’s smile wavered as the word ‘love’ was tossed around carelessly. She caught Laurie’s eye, her jaw tense, her gaze unsteady. Laurie smiled reassuringly and shrugged. _Your decision._ Jo smiled tightly. _Thanks_.

They pushed her out of the carriage into the rain and she panicked because he wasn’t there. She tore through the train station, searching until someone came up behind her. She turned around and looked him in the eyes, searching herself for something new. She reached down into her heart and soul and searched for something she hadn’t felt before. Her siblings said she was in love with him. But she looked at him and didn’t feel it. He wasn’t the first man she had ever loved. He was another person who she loved with everything she had. Jo had never been in love and she never would be, but she loved fiercely, with everything she was.

“Hello,” she greeted him breathlessly.

“Hello,” he said, a teasing smile painting his face.

Jo was never one to mince words. “I’m here to convince you to stay.”

“Is that so?” he asked, leaning down towards her face. She looked into his eyes and stared at his lips and she wished she was in love with him. He seemed so easy to be in love with. He seemed like if she could just be in love with him, then they could be happy. Then again, it had been the same with Laurie. Jo grabbed his forearms and held him there, keeping him from moving closer, but also not letting him move away.

“I am not in love with you,” she whispered. “I have never loved anyone romantically and I never will.” He was as still as Laurie had been when she told him and Jo prayed she wasn’t breaking the heart of another person she loved. “I cannot love you the way that I think you love me, but I care for you very much. All I can offer is my friendship and my familial love. I would like you to stay. If that is enough, if I am enough, then I would like you to stay.”

“May I kiss you?” he asked, his voice rough. “May I kiss you, Jo March?”

Jo gaped at him. “I have no romantic feelings for you,” she insisted. He smiled.

“I understand. I am not asking you for romance, but I would like intimacy if you would as well. May I kiss you?”

Jo closed her eyes. “I have never been kissed before. I don’t know if I would like it.”

“It could be a one time thing,” he promised and some deep part of her soul trusted him.

“Yes.” There were no fireworks. Her toes did not curl and her stomach did not clench. It felt no different from kissing Meg or hugging Laurie. It felt nice. So she kissed him back, framed by the rain, pulling him closer under his umbrella. She would never be in love, but Jo March loved like a tornado, recklessly and unforgiving.

She was a woman and she was more than her heart, and she deserved happiness and intimacy and love.

Jo March would never be lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this pretty quickly and with minimal editing. I just had to get it out and I needed to share it. If there are any glaring errors, pointing them out would be appreciated. Sorry if Friedrich is super out of character. I had issues with him. I saw the movie a few weeks ago so any quotes are from memory, so there may be a few continuity errors beyond what I meant to change. Little Women was so good! I really want to see it again! These scenes have been rattling around in my head since I watched it. I hope they're as satisfying to you as they are to me. Comments are always appreciated(ofc never necessary). Tell me what you thought of the fic or just scream about Little Women with me!  
> My tumblr is https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stubbornness-and-spite  
> I don't know how to shorten the link  
> Edit: Or make it a link apparently. I'm rereading this a few days after I wrote and posted it and I really don't like the style I wrote it in. I may post a rewritten/heavily edited version at some point. I don't know when because I haven't really looked at it yet to pinpoint what I don't like about it.


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